By Dan Ambrose: Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. says he plans on sharpening up his game by fighting twice before looking to face Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin at super middleweight. That’s the fight the 32-year-old Chavez Jr. says he wants for himself.
Chavez Jr. won’t be able to melt down to 160 to fight GGG, so he’s going to need for him to agree to fight him at 168. Chavez Jr. believes he can make the super middleweight division with no problems. Chavez Jr. says he’ll be fighting Golovkin to win. He’s not just interested in fighting him for the payday, which will likely be quite good if he’s able to get two quality wins before they meet. Chavez Jr. wants to Gabriel Rosado or Sergio Mora next in July or August at super middleweight.
Former WBC 160lb belt holder champion Chavez Jr. (50-3-1, 32 KOs) hasn’t fought in one year since his one-sided 12 round unanimous decision defeat at the hands of Saul Canelo Alvarez on May 6, 2017. It’s unclear why Chavez Jr. took the entire year off, as he looked terrible against Canelo in getting beaten up for 12 rounds. Chavez Jr. blamed his less than stellar performance on him being forced to take too much weight off during training camp to make the 164.5 pound catch-weight limit for the fight.
There was a large weight penalty for the fight, and that made Chavez Jr. worry a great deal when it came to making weight for the fight. Ultimately, Chavez Jr. did make weight for the fight, but he painfully thin, weak and unable to muster up any kind of offense in the fight. It was sad to see.
Chavez Jr. looked just as weight drained as Oscar De La Hoya did in his fight against Manny Pacquiao a decade ago in 2008. De La Hoya moved down from 154 to 147 for the Pacquiao fight, and it too much weight for him to lose at that late stage of his career. Pacquiao battered the depleted-looking De La Hoya for 8 rounds to get a stoppage. Chavez Jr. looked every bit as bad against Canelo as De La Hoya did in facing Pacquiao.
”I would like to face him [GGG] at my weight [168] logically and doing two fights before,” Chavez Jr. said to ESPN Deportes. ”Golovkin would be another fight for money, like it was the fight for Canelo…I have to do two or three fights to reach the top of my physical capacity and be active as in my best moments, to grab a major fight as it was Canelo and could be Golovkin. I think if I take that fight, it would be to win it and not just fight it,” Chavez Jr. said.
It sounds like a crazy dream that Chavez Jr. has in hoping for a fight against Golovkin, but you can’t rule it out. It’s possible that Chavez Jr. might get a money fight against Golovkin. Under the best possible scenario, Golovkin vs. Chavez Jr. would make good money for both fighters on HBO PPV. Chavez Jr. is still a highly recognizable name for the casual boxing fans, and there would be a lot of hardcore fans that would be interested in paying to see GGG fight him under the fight conditions. First, Chavez Jr. will need to beat Gabriel Rosado (24-11, 14 KOs) or former WBC light middleweight champion Sergio ‘The Latin Snake’ Mora (29-5-2, 9 KOs) in his next fight in July or August.
Chavez Jr. will then need to pick one or two more quality wins for him to prove that he’s turned his career around for him to even have a slight chance of getting the Golovkin fight. Ideally, Chavez Jr. should fight Mora and Rosado back to back with or five months separating the two fights. More importantly, Chavez Jr. can’t sit outside of the ring for 12 to 15 months like he’s doing now after his loss to Canelo. Chavez Jr. staying inactive for that long of a period after a win over Mora or Rosado would be pure poison. Any positive that Chavez Jr. gets from beating Rosado or Mora will be ruined by his subsequent inactivity. Chavez Jr. has to stay active and fight on a frequent basis because there’s no telling how much time Golovkin has left in his career. It’s not like he’s 23-years-old with a good 15 years left in his career. Golovkin is 36 now, and he’s clearly looking to maximize the money he can make in the remaining years of his career. Chavez Jr. would be a good money fight for GGG, but only if the former Mexican star gets serious about his career and picks up two to three good wins under his belt.
”I see myself in 5-10 more years,” Chavez Jr. said about the time left in his career.
Chavez Jr. hasn’t done well in the last six years of his career since his 12 round unanimous decision loss to Sergio Martinez. Since that loss, Chavez Jr. has a 4-2 record with losses to Canelo and Andrzej Fonfara. Chavez’s victories in the last six years have come against Brian Vera [twice], Marcos Reyes, and Dominik Britsch. Those were not great wins for Chavez Jr. The troubling thing is that Chavez Jr. didn’t look good in any of those fights. He looked very poor. His first win over journeyman Vera (26-13, 16 KOs), a 10 round unanimous decision in September 2013, was a questionable victory. It was arguably far worse than the controversial 12 round draw for the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight last September. The results of that fight extremely controversial, with many boxing fans believing Canelo was given a gift by the Nevada judges. Chavez Jr. vs. Vera I was a far more controversial fight in my view, as was so one-sided in Vera’s favor that it was shocking that he was given a loss. The controversy led to Chavez Jr. giving Vera a rematch seven months later in March 2014, and he beat him by a 12 round unanimous decision. Chavez Jr. looked much better in that fight and clearly won. That fight was the best Chavez Jr. has looked since his bout with Andy Lee in June 2012. I wouldn’t say that Chavez Jr. looked great against Vera in the rematch, but he was better in that fight than he has in any of his other five fights in the last six years.
The way Chavez Jr. has looked lately in his last three fights since 2015, I don’t think he’ll come even close to beating the 32-year-old Rosado or Mora. Those guys are no longer in their prime of their careers, but they still have more than enough left to beat a slow, limited fighter like Chavez Jr. Rosado might even knock Chavez Jr. out. Rosado looked great in his last fight in stopping Glen Tapia in the 6th round last October in Las Vegas, Nevada. If Rosado comes in the same shape against Chavez, he’ll stop him for sure. Rosado has lost two out of his last three fights to Martin Murray and Willie Monroe Jr. However, Rosado’s 12 round majority defeat to Murray in April 2017 was a controversial one that took place in the British fighter’s hometown in Liverpool, England. Rosado deserved a win against Murray.
The 37-year-old Mora has lost two out of his last three fights since 2015, but he’s coming off of an 8 round split decision victory over Alfredo Angulo last April. Angulo is probably on the same level of Chavez Jr. in terms of hand speed, power and what he has left of his prime. Mora out-boxed Angulo for 8 rounds, and I see him doing the same thing with Chavez Jr. if he gets the fight against him. That’s not to say that Mora will be able to win a decision over a popular fighter like Chavez Jr. There’s a good possibility that Mora will lose to Chavez Jr. if it goes to the scorecards, because he would be the B-side in the fight. Mora would likely need to beat Chavez Jr. in a one-sided manner for him to get a decision victory.